I guess the final margin will depend on the Hispanic pushback - the Rio Grande valley as well as several Hispanic-majority areas (i.e. part of Houston) have swung hard to the right since 2018.
eh, let everyone run their own race. They probably both need to be seen as independent pols who will break from the party when needed for either of them to win.
One thing I do want to mention in light of all the sometimes heated vigorous debate and discussion in arguments made from various users of varying ideologies this last few months: You know what that says to me? Energy. The Democratic Party has energy, as do our voters and our candidates that are fighting it out in primaries.
Not having primaries has been a very bad thing. It means part of our base feels alienated and left out. It’s no surprise then that they don’t turn out in the general election for us after. Republicans nominated a ton of shitty candidates who then lost general elections, but you know what else happened? The party vote baseline got bigger, stronger and more consistent across every election since after Obama.
They won 2014, won 2016, held the Senate in 2018, barely lost in 2020, won in 2022 and won in 2024. That’s a record our party would be extremely jealous of despite us making fun of MAGA at the time and believing they’d cost the GOP everything. We’ve been shooting ourselves in the face not allowing primaries, even ugly, bruising and bloody ones.
It’s up to our nominees to win over those Democrats who didn’t vote for them and any capable politician will be able to do so of any ideology. Energy also increases votes when competing visions, with well funded and organized campaigns that are aimed at different demographics are running to be nominated, instead of anointed, for fear of being too divided after. Even better when there’s more than 2!
Turnout in districts with competitive primaries:
D7 66k voters (10% left to be counted)
D10 83k voters (10% left to be counted)
D12 102k voters (10% left to be counted)
D13 66k voters (10% left to be counted)
D17 46k voters (3% left to be counted)
Turnout in districts without competitive primaries:
D1 19k voters
D3 25k voters
D6 31k voters
D9 43k voters
D11 16k voters
D14 34k voters
D15 32k voters
D21 23k voters
D23 19k voters
D24 16k voters
Why we’ve insisted these last few decades of avoiding primaries (of any ideological direction btw!), has cost us everything. Turnout in the NY primaries were fairly low to normal, except in the districts where Democrats had more than 1 campaigns that were well funded and organized. There, we blew the doors off the barn in turnout. Maybe there’s a lesson here for us as a party to change into believing primaries are a good thing and should become normal for our party moving forward.
Thank you for your kind words, they’re deeply appreciated. I’m absolutely convinced Democrats have been doing politics wrong for decades now and this is finally the cycle we begin to fix and correct all the problems we’ve self inflicted onto our party to unleash its true potential.
I think you're probably right, as long as there isn't so much residue of bitterness among the supporters of the primary losers that it costs the party seats they otherwise might have won, which I think has been the fear on many people's parts.
I think that’s a legitimate fear. I think we’re going to lose races we shouldn’t based on who our primary voters support, that’s unavoidable. But we’re also at the same time letting all wings of our party fight it out and be heard. We’ve anointed nominees in races for nearly 15 years and what do we have to show for it?
Have we gotten any data at all that is evidence this strategy has helped us? Republicans may have lost races they should’ve won, but at the same time they also won power they should’ve lost. If those are the two options available, I know which one I’m picking every single time.
If she wins tonight’s primary, this is why. The leftwing of our party is out organizing everyone else and it’s showing up in the votes that get counted.
“It’s not looking great,” said one prominent Colorado Democratic strategist familiar with DeGette’s polling and granted anonymity to discuss private campaign data. “It’s very tough when you’re fighting against a wave.”
That strategist said they’d also seen a recent private survey that showed Hickenlooper in a dead heat with Gonzales in Denver. The most recent public poll of the race, conducted in late May, Hickenlooper led Gonzales by 41 percent to 34 percent, though it had an unusually high number of undecided voters.
You’re probably right with that interpretation upon closer inspection. I think it could refer to the state, since Denver is the capital, but you’re most likely right.
The whole article is interesting. What was really interesting was another linked article about Trump not in a rush to confirm more judges or other nominees like Labor Secretary, while Senate idiots like Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville are complaining about judicial seats not getting filled.
Would be nice if the Senate flipped this fall, so that Schumer can pull a McConnell with future judicial nominees. Although that appearance by Clarence Thomas on TV last night makes me think he's retiring this year.
If Democrats flip both House and Senate in November, they're going to be in no mood to cooperate with Rs during their lame duck period. Esp if Rs want to confirm a fourth SCOTUS judge.
I assumed they meant passing the next budget in the fall. Congress never passes those on time anymore so mini-CRs through early November is not a bad bet. And maybe-hopefully senate democrats would grow enough of a spine to filibuster anything long-term if we win big.
There are areas of Colorado that have more progressive Democratic primary electorates than Denver (some of the ski resort areas like Vail and Aspen come to mind), but any progressive running statewide in Colorado would have to run up a fairly big margin in Denver to offset more moderate-friendly areas like the Denver suburbs and Colorado Springs.
As I mentioned on Threads this morning, I think these Democratic insiders all of a sudden playing up the possibility of DeGette losing the CO-1 primary just to lower expectations among DeGette supporters.
The Sioux Falls mayoral runoff with two votes between the candidates counted five provisional votes for the canvass yesterday and... each candidate gained a single vote each with the other three from out of the city lol. The recount can now officially start, which will take ten days and be overseen by two Repubs, two Dems and a "recount referee" (along with the county auditor as administrative support).
As a West Virginian, I feel for Becky Pepper-Jackson and others affected by this. Even as someone from another city, I saw a lot of local discourse about her. I mentioned that I knew someone who almost got kicked out of WVU for making a negative post about her.
I doubt we play this right but SCOTUS has handed Dems a gift here. Now that they have to actually try and enforce this order and Dems can harangue them with "REPUBLICANS WANT TO CHECK YOUR TEENAGER'S GENITALS"
I don't think this is a winning issue for us. It may be morally imperative for us to take a position on it but, strictly politically speaking, we should stay as far away from it as possible.
You don't think it's a winning issue that Republicans want some rando to do a genital inspection for every teenage athlete over... 10 NCAA trans athletes? The Party of Pedophilia wants to drag kids into a room and make sure they have the right parts. Nail them to the walls with this.
No I don't think that's a winning issue. The people who are motivated by this sort of stuff don't vote for us. I'm not saying it's not utterly ridiculous, bigoted and a waste of everyone's time. I'm saying that, politically, it's a loser.
I'm of the mindset that they're going to keep bringing it up, so take a negative and turn it into a positive by making the topic so untenable every time they bring it up that they STFU about it because it bring up uncomfortable truths to keep bringing it up and then pivot back to economic issues.
SCOTUS struck down the Trump ban on birthright citizenship. 6-3 ruling written by Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, Barrett, and Kavanaugh.
Meanwhile it seems that Kavanaugh is playing spin the beer bottle to decide how he votes on any particular ruling. Not a reliable vote, but he can surprisingly be reasonable at times. Perhaps not as much as Barrett though.
Kavanaugh actually concurred/dissented. He concurred that the executive order was unlawful, but not that the plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment means what it says, only that it was barred by statute. So on the Constitutional question it was 5-4.
Honestly, this does us a favor. if it was 8-1 or 9-0, then we would have to deal with endless thinkpieces about how moderate the Supreme Court actually is all through the summer.
His opinion is hilarious in the context of him supposedly being an “originalist.” He basically declares Wong Kim Ark wrong for limiting the exceptions because he feels like the 14th amendment wasn’t meant to be as solidly written as it clearly was. Total nonsense on his part.
Alito retiring; not unexpected. This probably kills any hope of a third GOP Recon bill that was already on thin ice. This will take up all the oxygen the next few months. Expect SCJ Cannon .
Kennedy's retirement announcement happened later in the day after opinions, so still possible, but I agree since Alito wasn't even at the Court today lol
If/when Alito retires, I think Trump chooses Judge James Ho from the 5th Circuit. In perverse Republican logic, the anti-DEI President will take credit for appointing the first Asian-American SCJ, hoping to overshadow the fact that Judge Ho is so very extremely right-wing (and fairly young).
Ho is a pretty strident supporter of the original meaning of birthright citizenship. Given the high salience in the magasphere and the ease of peddling soft racism against him over that stance, I dont' think he has a chance at being nominated. It'll be Oldham or maybe Rao or Bumatay.
The size of the Court, and parts of its jurisiction, are statutory. Judiciary Act of 1789.
SCOTUS has already been expanded multiple times. It was originally 6. The Midnight Judges Act of 1801 recuced the number to 5 upon the next vacancy. But it was cancelled by the Judiciary Act of 1802 before a vacancy happened.
7 in 1807. 9 in 1837. 10 in 1863. Justices used to "ride a circuit" so as the US expand & added more circuits, so did the # of justices.
In 1866, to limit the Power of Andrew Johnson, Republicans passed another Judiciary Act reducing the # of Justices ton7, as the next 3 vacancies were not to be filled. 2 were lost. Once Grant took over, a new Actcwas passed, returnning the number to 9.
FDR attempted to expand the court in 1937.
Anyway, no Constitutional Amendment is required. Been there, done that.
Unfortunately that ship probably sailed when Ginsberg wouldn’t retire in 2013/2014 and Dems blew several winnable senate races in 2010/2014 so they lost the senate in 2014 and couldn’t confirm a Scalia replacement in 2016. That was the ballgame there.
Yep. She will always be on my shit list for how selfish she was. Although I don’t really know if Democrats blew Senate races across those years to make up the deficit. Maybe Nevada in 2012, Colorado in 2014, and Illinois in 2010? I don’t know if Alaska 2014 or North Carolina 2014 were winnable in hindsight.
We lost Alaska by 2 points and North Carolina by 1.5, how were they not winnable? The margins in those races weren't any worse for us than the Colorado race was.
2014 in general went worse for the party than it should have. Base turnout cratered and the campaign was dominated by nonsense like ebola. Obviously midterms are not friendly terrain, but there must have been a way to generate a little more energy on the Dem side of things.
Hagan and Begich probably did the best they possibly could that year. Udall totally fumbled the ball and could have won with a slightly better campaign.
Not surprising, and frankly I don't think this is a massive problem for us. Whoever Trump appoints won't be any worse since there wasn't a single thing Alito didn't support him on anyways. And at least now the Dems won't be able to pretend that we can just get the Supreme Court back if we get lucky with Alito and Thomas retiring. This will make the entire party have to choose between abolishing the filibuster and expanding the courts or accepting a conservative Supreme Court that stops us from doing anything for at least the next 15 years.
My one concern is that Collins will be able to vote against a Trump Supreme Court pick here and use that to pretend she's a moderate even though she voted for Kavanaugh.
If Dems were smart they’d make any vote a lose/lose for Collins (which they were totally incompetent at doing in 2020). If she votes for the nominee, she voted for a right wing justice. If she votes against, she’s only doing so because she’s not the deciding vote and is just doing her usual talking out of both sides of her mouth and doing whatever is convenient.
I'm honestly not sure what angers me more - the fact that another nutjob MAGA or fossil gets to set on the court for decades of our lives dragging and keeping the US in the dark ages, or the fact that many centrist will still insist on playing nice, with fake smiles and empty messages about justice and equality while refusing to even consider expanding the court.
It's a pre-written story so they can jump on breaking news, but it's funny how they fucked up to actually post it. They should post their Trump obit next lol
The retraction of the article reads: "He has not announced his retirement." Strictly, neither a confirmation nor denial of an imminent retirement announcement. I don't know what to conclude.
My assumption is they had inside info that he’d be announcing his retirement and were trigger happy. I think it’s safe to assume he will be retiring, although we obviously need confirmation from him first.
I think their reporter is personally friendly with some or all of the justices. She's been around forever... I'm pretty sure I remember listening to her in the 90s on All Things Considered and such...
Unfortunately, Alito isn't a fool. He understands his retirement window may well close. If only a certain other justice had understood the same! And, he and the party are probably convinced that the Kavanaugh circus helped energize the base in 2018 (I'm unconvinced, but it's hard to know for sure), and they're hoping for a repeat performance this year. On that point, I think their prospects are remote, but we will have to see who is chosen, and maybe Trump will specifically go fishing for someone with a history of culture war-related scandals. I wouldn't put it past him.
If I were the Democratic leadership, I would try to find any possible corruption-related angles, even just big money ties through Federalist Society activities. It reinforces a midterm message, and helps lay the foundation for future reforms if they are ever even remotely possible...
I think a confirmation fight this year, atop affordability and everything else from Trump 2.0? It won't energize Republican turnout the way it did in 2018.
But it WILL turn out angry Democrats and independents.
The conspiracist in me had the thought that maybe someone at NPR knows he's retiring and "accidentally" published it to bait him not to.
I read the article when it was up, and it was all about how his legacy is all about Dobbs now, completely overshadowing all his other work, and about how he was angry that Dobbs had become his legacy. I could imagine the author trying to get him to think he needs to write another chapter, presumably with the author having the ulterior motive of hoping he retires or passes during a less advantageous moment for Republicans.
This is probably wrong, but we did see the Dobbs opinion leaked, and I think the aim there was to get the SC to see the public's reaction and change their decision, and it sort of reminded me of that.
NJ-7: Republican Rep. Tom Kean said he was diagnosed with depression, which prompted a long stay at the hospital, forcing him to miss votes from early March to today.
As someone who knows firsthand what it's like to deal with mental health issues that extreme, I wish him the best. I also hope Rebecca Bennett beats him in November.
It really must be nice to still get paid for missing three months of work while dealing with health issues. If only all Americans had access to the same, which I'm sure he would still vote against.
I empathize with him. Mental health struggles are tough and often hard to convey and talk about.
But also, it seems rich for him to have significantly cut access to healthcare and limited mental health resources for many of his much less privileged constituents just last year, and then to go receive 116 days of specialized treatment.
Everyone should be able to access some type of resources for depression—not just nepo baby wealthy congressmen.
Of course he should have taken time to get treatment as needed, but I can't see at all why this merited months of absolute silence and secrecy. In the article, he's quoted as saying, "Asking for help is not a weakness. It is a strength." And, of course, I agree, but wouldn't it also serve to destigmatize mental illness for his office to have said, "Rep. Kean is seeking treatment for depression and will return on a timetable agreed upon with his doctors"?
Agree 100%. His secrecy about it only furthers the stigma of mental health, when this could have been an opportunity for education (i.e. anyone can be susceptible, even the privileged and powerful).
Could be addiction related issues wrapped up in that as well - we don’t know, but as a person with personal experience with that, I understand. I still think he could have let the public know he was ok.
I don’t think it has lost its credibility—hell of a lot better than any other major network news. I watch News Hour almost nightly, and their reporting remains solidly objective and based in reality. That’s an important distinction in this climate.
Does this necessarily mean that they're buddy-buddy? If this story is true, I feel like it's more likely that talks of his retirement have just been floating around political circles, journalists (including this one) heard about it, they wrote it up before the story broke publically, and NPR accidentally hit publish too soon. Any Supreme Court news correspondent worth their salary would be hanging around in spaces where Supreme Court news and rumors would be heard.
Going AWOL on your constituents for nearly 4 months in a death sentence in a swing district like this, regardless of reason. If his depression is so bad as to keep him from working for that long, he should have known to not run for re-election, or allow the Republicans to replace him on the ballot.
collins has not had to run in a year that we had a strong gubernatorial nominee since 2002, and the maine democratic coalition back then could not be more different than current iteration.
The fallout from June 23's democratic socialist victories in New York City continues:
-Businessman Dave Portnoy, who founded sports blog Barstool Sports, expressed interest in running against mayor Zohran Mamdani three years from now in 2029.
-Republican city councilor Vickie Paladino said that in another time, the DSA would be "neutralized" by federal forces. That comes after a city ethics committee dropped an investigation into several other controversial comments she has made, including advocating for the deportation of Mamdani and all Muslims in the western world.
Portnoy is himself a chode but the average Barstool listener/contributor is exactly the kind of low-info, culturally moderate but not socially conservative slopulist “vibes” swing voter we need to be making a pitch for aggressively.
Incidentally, Mamdani’s glueing himself to the Knicks during their Finals run is sort of what i have in mind
Sure although Portnoy in his regular pizza review videos after visiting it gave praise to Zachary's Pizza in Oakland, where it originally started. It means a lot considering there are lots of liberals around here as well as Berkeley, where the Zachary's location is also insanely popular all the time.
Aside from that, I really don't care about Portnoy.
Considering how popular Mamdani is in the city and how well he's done to date with consolidating power / surging DSA support, I look forward to the business community spending more money to defeat Zohran than they would pay in taxes under his plan.
Texas Siena:
Talarico 47 Paxton 47
Abbott 51 Hinijosa 45
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/us/politics/texas-senate-poll-talarico-paxton.html
C'mon, Gina. Close that gap further.
R+6 generic ballot. That would be worse than 2018 (when it was R+ 3.4).
I guess the final margin will depend on the Hispanic pushback - the Rio Grande valley as well as several Hispanic-majority areas (i.e. part of Houston) have swung hard to the right since 2018.
Talarico should campaign with Hinojosa. That might help her a bit polling wise.
eh, let everyone run their own race. They probably both need to be seen as independent pols who will break from the party when needed for either of them to win.
Sure but Hinojosa also has some time to close the gap.
Looks like pollsters are missing the mark and playing it far too safe again.
It’s my first day as a paid subscriber…appreciate what you guys do!
One thing I do want to mention in light of all the sometimes heated vigorous debate and discussion in arguments made from various users of varying ideologies this last few months: You know what that says to me? Energy. The Democratic Party has energy, as do our voters and our candidates that are fighting it out in primaries.
Not having primaries has been a very bad thing. It means part of our base feels alienated and left out. It’s no surprise then that they don’t turn out in the general election for us after. Republicans nominated a ton of shitty candidates who then lost general elections, but you know what else happened? The party vote baseline got bigger, stronger and more consistent across every election since after Obama.
They won 2014, won 2016, held the Senate in 2018, barely lost in 2020, won in 2022 and won in 2024. That’s a record our party would be extremely jealous of despite us making fun of MAGA at the time and believing they’d cost the GOP everything. We’ve been shooting ourselves in the face not allowing primaries, even ugly, bruising and bloody ones.
It’s up to our nominees to win over those Democrats who didn’t vote for them and any capable politician will be able to do so of any ideology. Energy also increases votes when competing visions, with well funded and organized campaigns that are aimed at different demographics are running to be nominated, instead of anointed, for fear of being too divided after. Even better when there’s more than 2!
Turnout in districts with competitive primaries:
D7 66k voters (10% left to be counted)
D10 83k voters (10% left to be counted)
D12 102k voters (10% left to be counted)
D13 66k voters (10% left to be counted)
D17 46k voters (3% left to be counted)
Turnout in districts without competitive primaries:
D1 19k voters
D3 25k voters
D6 31k voters
D9 43k voters
D11 16k voters
D14 34k voters
D15 32k voters
D21 23k voters
D23 19k voters
D24 16k voters
Why we’ve insisted these last few decades of avoiding primaries (of any ideological direction btw!), has cost us everything. Turnout in the NY primaries were fairly low to normal, except in the districts where Democrats had more than 1 campaigns that were well funded and organized. There, we blew the doors off the barn in turnout. Maybe there’s a lesson here for us as a party to change into believing primaries are a good thing and should become normal for our party moving forward.
Excellent take! I hadn't even thought of that, but you're 100% right.
Thank you for your kind words, they’re deeply appreciated. I’m absolutely convinced Democrats have been doing politics wrong for decades now and this is finally the cycle we begin to fix and correct all the problems we’ve self inflicted onto our party to unleash its true potential.
I think you're probably right, as long as there isn't so much residue of bitterness among the supporters of the primary losers that it costs the party seats they otherwise might have won, which I think has been the fear on many people's parts.
I think that’s a legitimate fear. I think we’re going to lose races we shouldn’t based on who our primary voters support, that’s unavoidable. But we’re also at the same time letting all wings of our party fight it out and be heard. We’ve anointed nominees in races for nearly 15 years and what do we have to show for it?
Have we gotten any data at all that is evidence this strategy has helped us? Republicans may have lost races they should’ve won, but at the same time they also won power they should’ve lost. If those are the two options available, I know which one I’m picking every single time.
I don't know what the data show in individual races.
If she wins tonight’s primary, this is why. The leftwing of our party is out organizing everyone else and it’s showing up in the votes that get counted.
https://x.com/DeepNotShallow/status/2071771312524243014
TEAM MELAT KIROS HAS JUST PASSED 500,000++ CALLS
FOLKS
100k doors knock
500k phone calls
$1M raised
This campaign has well beyond the resources to win. And we will win.
It’s good to see these progressive candidates run actual campaigns again rather than just buying some TV ads and calling it a day
Buried nugget in a politico article: Hickenlooper in a dead heat with Gonzales? 🤯
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/29/bennet-degette-colorado-primaries-progressives-00979355
“It’s not looking great,” said one prominent Colorado Democratic strategist familiar with DeGette’s polling and granted anonymity to discuss private campaign data. “It’s very tough when you’re fighting against a wave.”
That strategist said they’d also seen a recent private survey that showed Hickenlooper in a dead heat with Gonzales in Denver. The most recent public poll of the race, conducted in late May, Hickenlooper led Gonzales by 41 percent to 34 percent, though it had an unusually high number of undecided voters.
I read that as tied in Denver county, not tied in the whole state.
You’re probably right with that interpretation upon closer inspection. I think it could refer to the state, since Denver is the capital, but you’re most likely right.
The whole article is interesting. What was really interesting was another linked article about Trump not in a rush to confirm more judges or other nominees like Labor Secretary, while Senate idiots like Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville are complaining about judicial seats not getting filled.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/29/senate-nominations-judges-labor-trump-00977929
Would be nice if the Senate flipped this fall, so that Schumer can pull a McConnell with future judicial nominees. Although that appearance by Clarence Thomas on TV last night makes me think he's retiring this year.
Trump likes playing the president on TV. He doesn't seem to like actually doing real work as president.
I think we underrate how much Trump 1.0 was really McConnell running the show from the Senate
Expect another record breaking shutdown come December.
December for what?
If Democrats flip both House and Senate in November, they're going to be in no mood to cooperate with Rs during their lame duck period. Esp if Rs want to confirm a fourth SCOTUS judge.
Right, but they won't actually flip either House until January.
I assumed they meant passing the next budget in the fall. Congress never passes those on time anymore so mini-CRs through early November is not a bad bet. And maybe-hopefully senate democrats would grow enough of a spine to filibuster anything long-term if we win big.
There are areas of Colorado that have more progressive Democratic primary electorates than Denver (some of the ski resort areas like Vail and Aspen come to mind), but any progressive running statewide in Colorado would have to run up a fairly big margin in Denver to offset more moderate-friendly areas like the Denver suburbs and Colorado Springs.
As I mentioned on Threads this morning, I think these Democratic insiders all of a sudden playing up the possibility of DeGette losing the CO-1 primary just to lower expectations among DeGette supporters.
https://www.threads.com/@a.apollo.c/post/DaNEOA7lnnL?xmt=AQG0PtUoE4_uvC2qJEJwMcRFSuLzih_FFLUSDiOrFqz07g
The Sioux Falls mayoral runoff with two votes between the candidates counted five provisional votes for the canvass yesterday and... each candidate gained a single vote each with the other three from out of the city lol. The recount can now officially start, which will take ten days and be overseen by two Repubs, two Dems and a "recount referee" (along with the county auditor as administrative support).
SCOTUS ruled in favor of the trans athletes ban. As expected.
And striking down yet another campaign finance regulation.
That ruling has some very limited potential upside in wrestling party control back from super PACs though that horse may have long left the barn
The bigger issue is that right-wing zillionaires now get access to candidate rates for TV ads
I thought broadcasters were pushing back on that? I haven't seen anything definitive on how rates are going to work.
As a West Virginian, I feel for Becky Pepper-Jackson and others affected by this. Even as someone from another city, I saw a lot of local discourse about her. I mentioned that I knew someone who almost got kicked out of WVU for making a negative post about her.
Terrible.
I doubt we play this right but SCOTUS has handed Dems a gift here. Now that they have to actually try and enforce this order and Dems can harangue them with "REPUBLICANS WANT TO CHECK YOUR TEENAGER'S GENITALS"
I don't think this is a winning issue for us. It may be morally imperative for us to take a position on it but, strictly politically speaking, we should stay as far away from it as possible.
You don't think it's a winning issue that Republicans want some rando to do a genital inspection for every teenage athlete over... 10 NCAA trans athletes? The Party of Pedophilia wants to drag kids into a room and make sure they have the right parts. Nail them to the walls with this.
No I don't think that's a winning issue. The people who are motivated by this sort of stuff don't vote for us. I'm not saying it's not utterly ridiculous, bigoted and a waste of everyone's time. I'm saying that, politically, it's a loser.
I'm of the mindset that they're going to keep bringing it up, so take a negative and turn it into a positive by making the topic so untenable every time they bring it up that they STFU about it because it bring up uncomfortable truths to keep bringing it up and then pivot back to economic issues.
SCOTUS struck down the Trump ban on birthright citizenship. 6-3 ruling written by Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, Barrett, and Kavanaugh.
If three justices can ignore what the Constitution says plainly...
Honestly thought Gorsuch would've sided with the majority.
Me too. At oral arguments, he sounded very skeptical of the plaintiffs. But I guess conservative brain worms won out in the end.
Thomas and Alito are playing by Calvinball now. Whatever Trump says, they do, no matter what their prior decisions were or what the Constitution says.
Meanwhile it seems that Kavanaugh is playing spin the beer bottle to decide how he votes on any particular ruling. Not a reliable vote, but he can surprisingly be reasonable at times. Perhaps not as much as Barrett though.
Kavanaugh actually concurred/dissented. He concurred that the executive order was unlawful, but not that the plain text of the Fourteenth Amendment means what it says, only that it was barred by statute. So on the Constitutional question it was 5-4.
Honestly, this does us a favor. if it was 8-1 or 9-0, then we would have to deal with endless thinkpieces about how moderate the Supreme Court actually is all through the summer.
Yeah, Kavanaugh did not join the Roberts opinion at all (which still controls in full since it has five full votes).
The bottom line vote was still 6-3.
On the judgement.
Edit: Meaning, Kavanaugh's separate concurrence has no power of precedent.
His opinion is hilarious in the context of him supposedly being an “originalist.” He basically declares Wong Kim Ark wrong for limiting the exceptions because he feels like the 14th amendment wasn’t meant to be as solidly written as it clearly was. Total nonsense on his part.
Alito retiring; not unexpected. This probably kills any hope of a third GOP Recon bill that was already on thin ice. This will take up all the oxygen the next few months. Expect SCJ Cannon .
EDIT: NPR retracted the article
Kennedy's retirement announcement happened later in the day after opinions, so still possible, but I agree since Alito wasn't even at the Court today lol
If/when Alito retires, I think Trump chooses Judge James Ho from the 5th Circuit. In perverse Republican logic, the anti-DEI President will take credit for appointing the first Asian-American SCJ, hoping to overshadow the fact that Judge Ho is so very extremely right-wing (and fairly young).
Ho is a pretty strident supporter of the original meaning of birthright citizenship. Given the high salience in the magasphere and the ease of peddling soft racism against him over that stance, I dont' think he has a chance at being nominated. It'll be Oldham or maybe Rao or Bumatay.
Bumatay and Rao are both more moderate than Alito (or Oldham).
Still think Ho would be the pick
Yikes Alito retires.
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/30/nx-s1-4622951/samuel-alito-retires
EDIT: NPR have now taken down the story, after it being published in error. How you can publish a story of this magnitude by error, who knows?
Fuuck
Doesn't change the 6-3 composition though.
If he retired after the midterms it’d give the democrats really good leverage over Trump and to appoint a liberal justice
Trump wouldn't appoint anyone that would ever be approved by a D Senate.
Depending on the majority that D Senate has. I imagine at least John Fetterman would vote to confirm a Trump justice.
Schumer just wouldn’t let the nominee get a vote
Trump will make recess appointments, unlike Obama. Even if they aren't confirmed, they'll still serve for awhile.
He can try, but a recent SCOTUS opinion (for whatever that's worth) says the Congress is only in recess when it says it is.
Seems like SCOTUS will always have a conservative majority with our luck
That's why we have to expand the courts
I think some sort of time limit on the court is more palatable to voters, i hear 10 years, 1 term only being thrown around.
wouldn’t that require a constitutional amendment?
Possibly, but Congress has broad latitude to structure the courts.
It would not.
The size of the Court, and parts of its jurisiction, are statutory. Judiciary Act of 1789.
SCOTUS has already been expanded multiple times. It was originally 6. The Midnight Judges Act of 1801 recuced the number to 5 upon the next vacancy. But it was cancelled by the Judiciary Act of 1802 before a vacancy happened.
7 in 1807. 9 in 1837. 10 in 1863. Justices used to "ride a circuit" so as the US expand & added more circuits, so did the # of justices.
In 1866, to limit the Power of Andrew Johnson, Republicans passed another Judiciary Act reducing the # of Justices ton7, as the next 3 vacancies were not to be filled. 2 were lost. Once Grant took over, a new Actcwas passed, returnning the number to 9.
FDR attempted to expand the court in 1937.
Anyway, no Constitutional Amendment is required. Been there, done that.
Unfortunately that ship probably sailed when Ginsberg wouldn’t retire in 2013/2014 and Dems blew several winnable senate races in 2010/2014 so they lost the senate in 2014 and couldn’t confirm a Scalia replacement in 2016. That was the ballgame there.
Yep. She will always be on my shit list for how selfish she was. Although I don’t really know if Democrats blew Senate races across those years to make up the deficit. Maybe Nevada in 2012, Colorado in 2014, and Illinois in 2010? I don’t know if Alaska 2014 or North Carolina 2014 were winnable in hindsight.
Illinois in 2010 should have never been lost. Same with Colorado even in 2014.
Nevada would have been won in 2012 had Dems not written the race off a few weeks out even though polling showed it very close.
Slightly better Dem turnout probably gets Sestak over the line in PA in 2010.
These four races would have allowed Dems to keep 50-50 in the senate after 2014.
I’d agree that AK and NC probably weren’t winnable in 2014.
We lost Alaska by 2 points and North Carolina by 1.5, how were they not winnable? The margins in those races weren't any worse for us than the Colorado race was.
Because Udall really fucked up in how he handled that campaign whereas idk what Hagan and Begich could have done differently within their own control.
2014 in general went worse for the party than it should have. Base turnout cratered and the campaign was dominated by nonsense like ebola. Obviously midterms are not friendly terrain, but there must have been a way to generate a little more energy on the Dem side of things.
Hagan and Begich probably did the best they possibly could that year. Udall totally fumbled the ball and could have won with a slightly better campaign.
The blame is solely on her, the GOP fumbled a bunch of races in that timeframe too
100%. We had no business being as lucky as we were in 2012.
Not surprising, and frankly I don't think this is a massive problem for us. Whoever Trump appoints won't be any worse since there wasn't a single thing Alito didn't support him on anyways. And at least now the Dems won't be able to pretend that we can just get the Supreme Court back if we get lucky with Alito and Thomas retiring. This will make the entire party have to choose between abolishing the filibuster and expanding the courts or accepting a conservative Supreme Court that stops us from doing anything for at least the next 15 years.
My one concern is that Collins will be able to vote against a Trump Supreme Court pick here and use that to pretend she's a moderate even though she voted for Kavanaugh.
If Dems were smart they’d make any vote a lose/lose for Collins (which they were totally incompetent at doing in 2020). If she votes for the nominee, she voted for a right wing justice. If she votes against, she’s only doing so because she’s not the deciding vote and is just doing her usual talking out of both sides of her mouth and doing whatever is convenient.
I'm honestly not sure what angers me more - the fact that another nutjob MAGA or fossil gets to set on the court for decades of our lives dragging and keeping the US in the dark ages, or the fact that many centrist will still insist on playing nice, with fake smiles and empty messages about justice and equality while refusing to even consider expanding the court.
How do you get that wrong
That’s a very good question.
Especially somewhere credible like NPR...
I mean i'm sure he is going to retire, it must not be official yet.
They probably didn’t.
It's a pre-written story so they can jump on breaking news, but it's funny how they fucked up to actually post it. They should post their Trump obit next lol
The retraction of the article reads: "He has not announced his retirement." Strictly, neither a confirmation nor denial of an imminent retirement announcement. I don't know what to conclude.
My assumption is they had inside info that he’d be announcing his retirement and were trigger happy. I think it’s safe to assume he will be retiring, although we obviously need confirmation from him first.
Why would NPR of all places have that intel
I think their reporter is personally friendly with some or all of the justices. She's been around forever... I'm pretty sure I remember listening to her in the 90s on All Things Considered and such...
Not friendly with Clarence Thomas, however. She broke the Anita Hill scandal.
Yeah Nina Totenberg is exactly the person who would have this story.
Unfortunately, Alito isn't a fool. He understands his retirement window may well close. If only a certain other justice had understood the same! And, he and the party are probably convinced that the Kavanaugh circus helped energize the base in 2018 (I'm unconvinced, but it's hard to know for sure), and they're hoping for a repeat performance this year. On that point, I think their prospects are remote, but we will have to see who is chosen, and maybe Trump will specifically go fishing for someone with a history of culture war-related scandals. I wouldn't put it past him.
If I were the Democratic leadership, I would try to find any possible corruption-related angles, even just big money ties through Federalist Society activities. It reinforces a midterm message, and helps lay the foundation for future reforms if they are ever even remotely possible...
I think a confirmation fight this year, atop affordability and everything else from Trump 2.0? It won't energize Republican turnout the way it did in 2018.
But it WILL turn out angry Democrats and independents.
The conspiracist in me had the thought that maybe someone at NPR knows he's retiring and "accidentally" published it to bait him not to.
I read the article when it was up, and it was all about how his legacy is all about Dobbs now, completely overshadowing all his other work, and about how he was angry that Dobbs had become his legacy. I could imagine the author trying to get him to think he needs to write another chapter, presumably with the author having the ulterior motive of hoping he retires or passes during a less advantageous moment for Republicans.
This is probably wrong, but we did see the Dobbs opinion leaked, and I think the aim there was to get the SC to see the public's reaction and change their decision, and it sort of reminded me of that.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-kean-missing-illness-returns-congress/
NJ-7: Republican Rep. Tom Kean said he was diagnosed with depression, which prompted a long stay at the hospital, forcing him to miss votes from early March to today.
As someone who knows firsthand what it's like to deal with mental health issues that extreme, I wish him the best. I also hope Rebecca Bennett beats him in November.
I can wish him the best and still not want someone in a leadership position who isn't healthy.
It really must be nice to still get paid for missing three months of work while dealing with health issues. If only all Americans had access to the same, which I'm sure he would still vote against.
Someone should ask him if he’ll co-sponsor the bill for paid sick leave for all Americans.
I empathize with him. Mental health struggles are tough and often hard to convey and talk about.
But also, it seems rich for him to have significantly cut access to healthcare and limited mental health resources for many of his much less privileged constituents just last year, and then to go receive 116 days of specialized treatment.
Everyone should be able to access some type of resources for depression—not just nepo baby wealthy congressmen.
As I had speculated from the beginning.
Of course he should have taken time to get treatment as needed, but I can't see at all why this merited months of absolute silence and secrecy. In the article, he's quoted as saying, "Asking for help is not a weakness. It is a strength." And, of course, I agree, but wouldn't it also serve to destigmatize mental illness for his office to have said, "Rep. Kean is seeking treatment for depression and will return on a timetable agreed upon with his doctors"?
Agree 100%. His secrecy about it only furthers the stigma of mental health, when this could have been an opportunity for education (i.e. anyone can be susceptible, even the privileged and powerful).
I actually assumed it was alcohol or drug rehab, which is probably worse politically, so his secrecy did him no favors.
I guess he had a standing order to not tell anyone and didn't rescind it. However, he was out last week and still acted cryptic.
Senator John Fetterman was hospitalized for depression although I wonder if this is the same thing as what Tom Kean was diagnosed with.
However, Kean is an incumbent House Republican running for re-election whereas Fetterman was still a Senate candidate back in 2022.
Could be addiction related issues wrapped up in that as well - we don’t know, but as a person with personal experience with that, I understand. I still think he could have let the public know he was ok.
Tom Kean announces a depression diagnosis as to why he was so absent.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/30/politics/tom-kean-depression-diagnosis?cid=ios_app
I would be shocked if Alito is on SCOTUS by January 2027. Someone at NPR jumped the gun and published it (and why none of the other outlets did).
He'll probably announce it within a week or so. But that gives Senate Ds less incentive to work with Republicans on ANYTHING.
NPR tipped its hand that its SCOTUS reporter is personally buddy-buddy with the justices (at least the conservative ones)
And we wonder why the NPR has lost its way over the years in its credibility.
According to the Wayback Machine, the Alito announcement is scheduled for July 4th.
Blergh.
The article had both Friday and Tuesday in it. It looks like a pre-write to me rather than a story they were actively developing.
I don’t think it has lost its credibility—hell of a lot better than any other major network news. I watch News Hour almost nightly, and their reporting remains solidly objective and based in reality. That’s an important distinction in this climate.
Does this necessarily mean that they're buddy-buddy? If this story is true, I feel like it's more likely that talks of his retirement have just been floating around political circles, journalists (including this one) heard about it, they wrote it up before the story broke publically, and NPR accidentally hit publish too soon. Any Supreme Court news correspondent worth their salary would be hanging around in spaces where Supreme Court news and rumors would be heard.
Yeah, I imagine they have a draft folder of basic articles for some anticipated future events and someone published the wrong thing.
Thomas Eagleton sends his regards to Mr. Kean...let us hope that the voters of NJ-7 kick Mr. Kean and his hypocrisy to the curb this November.
It’s still amazing Eagleton was able to get reelected in Missouri in the Reagan landslide with all his issues.
He only had that one issue. And he had apparently gotten through it.
Especially as Dem Senators were going down left and right elsewhere like in Washington state
Going AWOL on your constituents for nearly 4 months in a death sentence in a swing district like this, regardless of reason. If his depression is so bad as to keep him from working for that long, he should have known to not run for re-election, or allow the Republicans to replace him on the ballot.
Maine Governor Siena: Pingree 55 Charles 40.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/30/polls/times-pph-siena-maine-poll-crosstabs.html
Bennett?
high single digits
collins has not had to run in a year that we had a strong gubernatorial nominee since 2002, and the maine democratic coalition back then could not be more different than current iteration.
And Collins' opponent that year was Hannah Pingree's mom, Chellie Pingree! (Before Chellie was a US Rep.)
this 15 point margin just strengthens my opinion that Platner wins.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2026/06/30/dave-portnoy-says-hed-run-against-mamdani-in-nyc-mayoral-race/90749445007/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/dsa-nyc
The fallout from June 23's democratic socialist victories in New York City continues:
-Businessman Dave Portnoy, who founded sports blog Barstool Sports, expressed interest in running against mayor Zohran Mamdani three years from now in 2029.
-Republican city councilor Vickie Paladino said that in another time, the DSA would be "neutralized" by federal forces. That comes after a city ethics committee dropped an investigation into several other controversial comments she has made, including advocating for the deportation of Mamdani and all Muslims in the western world.
Portnoy is himself a chode but the average Barstool listener/contributor is exactly the kind of low-info, culturally moderate but not socially conservative slopulist “vibes” swing voter we need to be making a pitch for aggressively.
Incidentally, Mamdani’s glueing himself to the Knicks during their Finals run is sort of what i have in mind
Sure although Portnoy in his regular pizza review videos after visiting it gave praise to Zachary's Pizza in Oakland, where it originally started. It means a lot considering there are lots of liberals around here as well as Berkeley, where the Zachary's location is also insanely popular all the time.
Aside from that, I really don't care about Portnoy.
Just because it works for Trump, doesn't mean every dipshit with a crap soul can win an election, Pourtnoy.
Considering how popular Mamdani is in the city and how well he's done to date with consolidating power / surging DSA support, I look forward to the business community spending more money to defeat Zohran than they would pay in taxes under his plan.
Portnoy is such an unlikable douche he's going to get crushed. He'll just be another Spencer Pratt.
Portnoy is also a huge Boston sports fan, so good luck with that in NYC.
What’s extra weird is that Barstool’s chief operation is in Chicago and is basically staffed by Bears fanatics
Da Bears!
Agreed haha although I dread what this season is gonna be like with the Madden curse over our heads.
Not to mention moving the stadium to Hammond instead of Arlington Heights.
Also, DeBlasio was a Red Sox fan and managed, somehow